LIMB----Landscape+Infomation+Model+Building

=LIMB _//Landscape Information Model Building //= toc Class project for AE 597F: Virtual Facility Prototyping looking at the interoperability between landscape and building systems integration.

Team Members
Matt Zambelli Department of Landscape Architecture_5th year



Description of Project
**The idea of this project is to develop a spatially design + visualization work flow incorporating widely used industry software programs .** The programs that are explore, evaluated, and documented are the **ArcGIS Suit 9.2** and what I call the "**Google Suite", Google Earth + SketchUp Pro**. The basis behind the two software bundles are that GIS works in real world spatial coordinates and has a large backing, community, and virtual database of information. While real time 3D visualization is easy utilizing the ArcScene portion of the GIS suit, many people are currently familiar and comfortable with both Google Earth and SketchUp, so I will demonstrated how to export, manipulate, and visualize existing and proposed design data via Google Earth. **The LIMB process can be highly valuable to anyone involved in Landscape Architecture, Land Planning, Architecture, or BIM (Building Information Modeling).** The ability to visualize existing, modified, and proposed buildings, landscapes, and cities in their real geographic location is crucially valuable in making informed design decisions. As people, aka clients, begin to become familiar with these new analysis and presentation applications, they will begin to expect this type of presentation from their designers. As designers we have a responsibility to be as accurate and clear as possible in our analysis, conception, and presentation.** The LIMB process is the first attempt at a solution to satisfy all of those responsibilities in a quick and easy way. **

Products Developed

 *  LIMB Process **
 * 1) **Gathering Data_(Web)**
 * 2) **Viewing + Analyzing Data_(ArcMap)**
 * 3) **Exporting Data_(ArcMap to SketchUp)**
 * 4) **Manipulating Data a.k.a. "Design" (SketchUp)**
 * 5) **Exporting Data_(SketchUp to ArcScene)**
 * 6) **Exporting Data_(SketchUp to Google Earth)**
 * 7) **Visualizing Data_(Google Earth)**

Words of Caution

 * **Determine Data Worth:** When dealing with GIS data it is crucial to not just assume all of the data you need will be in the current file. By this I mean if you are downloading a building footprint file do not simply assume the heights of the buildings will be an available data field provided. If your are trying to quickly replicate a city or town this can be much more easily achieved if the building heights are already provided in the data, making it much more VALUABLE.


 * **Model With A Plan:** When attempting to model a project it is always important to know what you want out of the model before you begin. Certain urban studies such as development massing, visual impact, and light studies can be preformed relatively accurately with minimal to no modeling. Modeling an urban area in any type of architectural detail is no small task and should not be attempted unless necessary to the study. The fact that the model is geographically located and viewed within its context makes a basic model more "intelligent" than a detailed model located in space.


 * **Beware of Study Area Size**: It is always important to take the size of the model into serious consideration in order to make the process, and your computer, run more smoothly. GIS is a high power software that is great at dealing with large amounts of data. However SketchUp is not as good a dealing with large amounts of 3D data at one particular time. Fortunately in this process we are using Google Earth as our visualization application so our SketchUp problem can be fixed by importing several "workable" files into Google Earth in order to compile a model as large as needed or desired.

Acknowledgments
Tim Murtha, Department of Landscape Architecture, Professor